BUSTED: the Tories are lying about channel migrants’ freebies
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The Conservatives have published a misleading and inflammatory list claiming that channel migrants receive a long series of luxurious perks when they arrive in the UK.
Examination reveals that most of these claims are false or exaggerated, and the few that are true involve essential support like housing, food, and basic healthcare.
The attack post mixes fact with fiction in a way designed to make the lies seem plausible.
An image of the post should appear somewhere alongside this article. Let’s break it down:
False claims (not provided nationally)
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Hotel accommodation, including three-star hotels with bars, gardens, terraces, free Wi-Fi – Only basic temporary hotels are used in some cases – never luxury stays, often former hotels that had been disused.
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Free cooking lessons – Some local programmes may offer them, but they are not nationally provided.
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University bursaries, scholarships, and fee waivers – Limited to a few institutions; not guaranteed nationwide.
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Discounted Spanish or French lessons – Local programmes may exist; this is not a national benefit.
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Free bus travel from councils – Only offered in certain local initiatives.
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Free driving lessons – There is no national scheme for driving lessons.
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Free sports and leisure tickets/trips – this may happen with occasional local events, but it is not a universal entitlement.
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Free PlayStation consoles and yoga sessions – Entirely false; there is no national provision.
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Free swimming, group exercise classes, and gym sessions – Only available in some local schemes.
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Discounts on theatre shows – False; there is no national programme.
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Free mobile phone on arrival – False; phones may be provided by charities in rare cases, not by the government.
True claims (nationally provided)
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Housing and food provided directly by the state – Standard policy for those unable to support themselves.
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Weekly allowance of £49.18 per person – Cash allowance for personal items, not including food or accommodation.
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Access to food banks – Asylum seekers can access the same services as anyone in need.
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HC2 certificates giving free healthcare services – Covers dental care, prescriptions, eye tests, glasses, wigs, and travel to medical treatment.
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Home Office clothing packs on arrival – Basic essentials are provided on entry.
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Taxpayer-funded legal aid for asylum cases – Ensures fair access to legal representation.
Why the Tory post is misleading
Many of the false claims appear plausible because they resemble real, local programmes or minor integration initiatives, but none are guaranteed nationally.
This is a classic tactic in political attacks: mix a few truths with massive lies to make the overall story more believable.
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Temporary hotel stays happen but are basic, not luxury.
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Some councils offer recreational programs or transport support, but these are minor, localised schemes rather than universal benefits.
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The only national support is essential: accommodation, food, healthcare, and a modest weekly allowance.
The effect is that readers may think migrants are receiving extravagant perks, when in reality, the government provides minimal, necessary support for survival and basic integration – help to cope with life in the UK while their claims are processed.
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UK growth beats forecasts – but the economic ‘foundations’ still aren’t fixed
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The last three months’ 0.3 per cent growth looks better than feared – but the real story is about weather, quirks, and spin. Underneath all that, investment is plunging, payroll jobs are falling, and the Bank of England says inflation won’t be back to target until 2027.
The new numbers
The UK economy grew by 0.3 per cent between April and June, slowing from 0.7 per cent in the first quarter but beating the 0.1 per cent economists had predicted.
June was stronger than expected, up 0.4 per cent, and April’s fall was revised from a nasty –0.3 per cent to a milder –0.1 per cent. The services sector drove most of the gain; construction chipped in; production shrank. On a per-person basis, GDP rose just 0.2 per cent.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves was quick to claim this as proof her “growth-first” plan is working.
But a closer look at the numbers – and at what’s actually driving them – suggests she can’t take the credit.
Why the “beat” happened
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Timing quirks and the weather. Some activity was dragged forward into February–March to dodge April’s stamp duty change and anticipated US tariffs. That flattered Q1 (the first three months of 2025) and meant a natural slowdown in Q2. A sunnier spring than usual gave construction a one-off lift of 1.2 per cent.
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Narrow growth engines. Services rose 0.4 per cent, driven by IT consultancy and health output. Retail actually dragged the economy for most of the quarter. Household spending edged up by just 0.1 per cent – barely moving.
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Business investment collapsed. UK business investment fell by four per cent in Q2, erasing earlier gains. Overall fixed investment slipped 1.1 per cent. If Reeves has “fixed the foundations,” firms clearly haven’t noticed.
The same approach as her ‘jobs created’ boast
Earlier this week, Reeves told the country Labour had “created 384,000 more jobs” in its first year. The number comes from the Workforce Jobs count, which logs positions not people. If you have two jobs, you’re counted twice.
The government’s own PAYE payrolls data – which counts actual people in employee jobs – shows the opposite: around 170,000 fewer people on payrolls than a year ago, with six consecutive months of decline.
Vacancies have been falling for years, but unemployment is steady at 4.7 per cent – almost certainly because more people are taking second jobs to make ends meet.
It’s the same tactic by Reeves: pick the measure that flatters the most, ignore the less flattering twin, and present it as proof of success.
Foundations aren’t ‘fixed’ just because the weather’s nice
Reeves’s other headline claims look equally shaky:
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“Real wages are up.” True, but only by around 1–1.5 per cent earlier this year, and the pace is slowing. That’s nowhere near enough to reverse decades of stagnation.
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“We’ve unblocked planning.” The OBR estimates the total GDP gain from current planning and infrastructure changes will be just 0.2 per cent by 2030.
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“Trade deals with the US, India and EU.” The India agreement exists; the EU one is modest; the US “deal” isn’t a free trade agreement at all – and US tariffs have already driven UK goods exports to their lowest in over three years.
The Bank of England isn’t convinced
Today’s resilience is making the Bank of England more cautious about cutting interest rates quickly. In August, it raised its inflation forecast: CPI is now expected to peak near four per cent this autumn and only return to the two per cent target in 2027.
The Bank Rate has been cut to four per cent after five quarter-point trims over the past year – but if inflation sticks, that’s as far as it may go for a while.
Strong, broad-based growth with surging productivity would encourage faster cuts. We’re not there.
The fiscal hole
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research says Reeves faces a £41.2 billion gap in her finances if she sticks to her own borrowing rules – likely requiring tax rises in the Autumn Budget.
That’s hardly the backdrop for sustained expansion.
So what should we take from today?
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Yes, growth has beaten forecasts – but for narrow, mostly temporary reasons.
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The UK’s core weaknesses – weak investment, falling payroll jobs, stagnant consumer spending – remain.
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Reeves’s habit of using flattering definitions and selective metrics makes her “fixed foundations” line ring hollow.
Britain’s economy keeps stumbling over the low bar forecasters set.
Until real wages rise decisively, investment turns up, and job gains show in the number of people in work rather than just the number of jobs counted, the foundations remain cracked.
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Rachel Reeves’s jobs boast is spin – and so are her other claims
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Rachel Reeves has been telling the public that Labour has “created 384,000 more jobs” in its first year — and the “foundations” of the economy are fixed.
But it’s just a story that she’s telling us.
The way she counts those jobs tells us far more about political spin than about the state of the economy.
The figure comes from the Office for National Statistics and its ‘Workforce Jobs’ series, which counts positions, not people.
If you have two part-time jobs, you’re counted twice.
That means a rise in jobs can happen even if fewer individuals are working — for example, if more people are juggling second jobs to make ends meet.
That is exactly what’s happening here. The government’s own PAYE (Pay As You Earn) payroll data, which counts actual people in employee jobs, shows the opposite: 164,000–178,000 fewer people on payrolls than a year ago, and five consecutive months of decline.*
Vacancies have been falling for years, and unemployment has risen to 4.7 per cent, the highest since 2021.
If the strongest-sounding number in Reeves’ speech is based on such selective framing, what does that say about the rest of her claims?
Wages “growing faster than in the Tories’ first decade”
Wages grew faster in our first 10 months in power than the first 10 years of Conservatives
Yes, wages have risen in real terms over the past year — but the comparison is with the weakest decade for UK pay growth in modern history. It’s a low bar.
And when you factor inflation in, it almost disappears altogether.
Real wage growth was between one per cent and 1.5 per cent in the first half of 2025 – far from enough to offset decades of wage stagnation, housing crunches, and cost-of-living pressures.
The poorest households are still worse off than before the pandemic, and the pay growth streak has already begun to slow.
“Trade deals with the US, India and EU”
Trade deals [have] now [been] struck with the United States, India and the European Union
The India Free Trade Agreement exists and the EU agreement is a modest co-operation pact.
The US “deal” is not a free trade agreement — it’s a bundle of market access changes and regulatory co-operation agreements.
It may be politically useful to lump them together, but they are economically very different in scope and impact.
“Lower mortgage costs than when we were elected”
The cost of a representative new variable rate mortgage [is now] lower than when we were elected
Variable mortgage rates have fallen slightly as the Bank of England cut rates.
But they remain far above 2021 levels, and affordability is still stretched.
For many borrowers, monthly costs are still hundreds of pounds higher than three years ago.
“Millions got a pay rise from the minimum wage”
Millions of working people [are] getting a pay rise from a boost to the national minimum wage
This one is true: the minimum wage rose in April.
But a higher hourly rate doesn’t guarantee higher income if employers cut hours, and it doesn’t help those outside the minimum wage bracket.
This Writer has a friend working in a supermarket. He said the hourly pay rise he has received looks great – until one considers the actual number of working hours he is given. And he’s expected to work harder, to get everything done in less time.
“Unblocking planning and cutting red tape”
[We are] breaking down the planning system to get Britain building, cutting the unnecessary red tape that has stifled innovation
The government has announced planning reforms and infrastructure bills.
But most are still in the legislative or policy stage, and the Office for Budget Responsibility expects the total GDP gain by 2030 to be just 0.2 per cent.
The jury is still out on whether these changes will transform growth.
A pattern of selective metrics
The “jobs created” line shows the method: pick the definition that flatters the most, leave out the less flattering twin, and hope the public doesn’t look too closely.
In each case, Reeves chooses a time frame, metric or label that makes the story seem better than the underlying data.
That’s not the same as fixing the foundations of the economy — it’s only fixing the presentation.
Until one job pays enough to live on, until wage growth is genuinely broad-based, and until employment gains show up in the number of people working rather than the number of jobs counted, “more jobs” is not a triumph- it’s a warning.
*In fairness, the Labour Force Survey shows an increase in self-employment, of around 70,000. Put that together with the payroll drop and only (only?) 110,000 more people are out of work.
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Damned if you do, damned if you don’t: this police transparency is pointless
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The government has released guidance encouraging police to state a crime suspect’s ethnicity, nationality or immigration status in high-profile cases – but the effort is likely to be pointless.
The aim is to increase transparency, curb misinformation and prevent racially-motivated public unrest of the kind seen in recent events.
But the reality is that public reaction is largely pre-determined by bias and rumour, meaning the change is unlikely to significantly affect what happens.
If a suspect’s ethnicity is not revealed, many will assume the individual belongs to a minority group.
If it is revealed and the suspect is from a minority, information may be exaggerated or generalized, turning that single individual into a – most likely distorted – reflection of an entire community.
Even when the suspect is non-minority, some may reinterpret or ignore the facts to maintain a racialized narrative.
Real-world examples from UK policing illustrate the dilemma:
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Liverpool Premier League parade (May 2024): Merseyside Police quickly disclosed that the arrested man was white and British to prevent rumours of terrorism from spreading.
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Southport stabbings (July 2024): Axel Rudakubana’s background was initially withheld due to age restrictions. False claims about him being a Muslim asylum seeker fuelled riots across England and Northern Ireland, even after his identity was later made public.
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Warwickshire alleged rape case (2025): Delay or discretion in releasing immigration status led to accusations of cover-up and political pressure.
The underlying pattern is clear: police are damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
Release details and risk inflaming prejudice; withhold them and allow misinformation to flourish.
In the digital age, social dynamics and online rumour networks largely override official transparency efforts, leaving real-world impact minimal.
The new guidance may clarify administrative procedures for police, but it does not change how society interprets or amplifies suspect information.
Bias and rumour-making are so entrenched that any disclosure—or any lack of it—can be spun to fit existing narratives.
This story of transparency is one of appearance more than effect.
Despite the intentions, the reality remains: police disclosure alone is not a solution to the deeper problem of misinformation and prejudice.
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Tulip Siddiq trial begins in Bangladesh with no summons, no evidence – no justice?
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Labour MP Tulip Siddiq is now officially on trial in Bangladesh – but she still says she has never been contacted by the authorities, never received a summons, and never been shown a shred of evidence.
The Hampstead and Highgate MP – who resigned as a Treasury minister in January after the UK’s client media decided that unproven allegations were more interesting than the truth – called the so-called proceedings “a farce” driven by “a clear political vendetta”.
Her legal team insists she has no Bangladeshi national ID card, no voter ID – and hasn’t held a passport for that country since she was a child. Prosecutors claim otherwise, waving around documents they say prove she is a Bangladeshi citizen and therefore subject to their jurisdiction.
The trial opened with corruption investigators claiming Siddiq influenced her aunt, the former prime minister Sheikh Hasina (deposed last year after mass protests), to secure a plot of land for her family in Dhaka’s lucrative Purbachal project – despite Bangladeshi rules forbidding such allocations.
They’ve tacked on extra allegations too, including supposedly acquiring another flat in the Gulshan area of the capital.
If convicted, Siddiq could face a life sentence in prison.
But the key point remains: nobody has ever served her with legal papers. Nobody has interviewed her. Nobody has responded to her legal correspondence. Nobody has even tried to meet her – even when Bangladeshi investigators came to the UK earlier this year.
Over the past year, the allegations against me have repeatedly shifted, yet I have never been contacted by the Bangladeshi authorities once,
Siddiq said on X.
If this were a genuine legal process, the authorities would have engaged with me or my legal team, responded to our formal correspondence, and presented the evidence they claim to hold. Instead, they have peddled false and vexatious allegations that have been briefed to the media but never formally put to me by investigators.
This is standard practice in Bangladeshi politics: the government of the day prosecutes members of the previous regime.
It is political score-settling dressed up as justice – and the UK’s so-called “serious” media are happy to act as stenographers for it.
Remember: Siddiq referred herself to Sir Laurie Magnus, the prime minister’s standards adviser, who found “no evidence of improprieties”, “no unusual financial arrangements”, and nothing to suggest any assets were derived from anything but legitimate means.
That didn’t matter to the wolves of the Opposition – or the client media baying for a scalp. Starmer’s Labour obliged them.
Now, Siddiq faces trial in absentia, on charges that seem to grow and mutate every time the authorities speak. The next hearing is set for August 28.
If she is eventually cleared, don’t expect the BBC or its pals to report that half as loudly as they’ve splashed these unproven claims.
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